Steve Jobs Announces (some) DRM-free iTunes 838
Fjan11 writes "Steve Jobs just announced that starting next month on you can buy higher quality 256Kbps AAC encoded DRM-free versions of iTunes songs for $1.29. Upgrades to songs you've already bought will be available at the $0.30 price difference. Currently EMI is the only publisher participating, accounting for about 20% of the songs available." There's also reports from Reuters and ABC News. The deal excludes the Beatles. You can also read the official press release from Apple if you still think this a late joke; this story confirms earlier speculation.
EMI Press (Score:3, Informative)
$9.99 Albums will be 256kbps/DRM Free (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good job everyone! (Score:5, Informative)
It's a Start! (Score:5, Informative)
This is excellent news! I love that they are offering the option to upgrade any previously purchased songs to the 256 kbps DRM free version for 30 cents a track. I plan on upgrading all of my tracks as soon as they are available. While I think that $1.29 is a little bit high for a track without DRM (I'd like to see them for the same price as the version with DRM), it's reasonable enough for me. You get twice the quality and no DRM for 30 cents more a track.
It also appears as if deals with other studios are imminent. From the press release [apple.com] [apple.com]:
Re:DRM-Free AACs are still locked to Ipods! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:DRM-Free AACs are still locked to Ipods! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Alright Slashdot... (Score:3, Informative)
I can't run itunes on my computer (maybe it works under Wine? I haven't tried that).
But the more important issue is... I'm currently interested in Japanese bands and they don't seem to want to sell this to me in Canada. I would literally jump at the chance to buy music, DRM free, at $1.20 per song. Shipping the damn CD's into Canada costs me a mint. Luckily I can bundle it with my manga purchases, but I'm still looking at close to $30 for most CDs (each) to get it here.
So until Sony/BMG (the distributor that distributes most of the music I listen to) gets their head out of their ass, there's little I can do
Re:DRM-Free AACs are still locked to Ipods! (Score:3, Informative)
No, its not just the iPod.
A list of players is available on wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
Its a substantial list, and its an open format. Its actually much better than MP3, and at 256 kb/s its probably about the same as a 320 kb/s MP3. In other words, very good quality. Apparently you can even play it on the Zune, although I suspect that the zune will DRM it before transfer. Not that this matters, as pretty much nobody actually has bought a Zune [roughlydrafted.com].
Michael
Re:What is the justification (Score:1, Informative)
April's Fool (Score:5, Informative)
huh? (Score:3, Informative)
From the format's wiki entry:
That lock-in is softer than a pair of fur-lined handcuffs. Probably about as easy to escape, too.
missed citation (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Codin
Re:Alright Slashdot... (Score:5, Informative)
How about buying some Japanese iTunes gift cards on eBay?
Certainly I use US iTunes gift cards in Australia...
Michael
Re:Alright Slashdot... (Score:5, Informative)
Pink Floyd, David Gilmour, Kraftwerk, and Kate Bush. These are some listed on their website EMI Records UK [emirecords.co.uk]. I don't know if that's the label, or if it's the entire EMI Group [emigroup.com].
If that's the case, You've got the Beach Boys, David Bowie, Coldplay, Duran Duran, Gorillaz...OK Go, Liz Phair...
Wow, I might be upgrading a few of those.
Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Now, sure, if you build a MIX AND MATCH album of you're fav singles at 256kbps, it would wind up costing you $20. But name me a music store where I can go in and buy a mix-and-match CD?
You're comparing apples to oranges there.
You're own fault (Score:4, Informative)
And lots of other players are format-upgradeable , and thus will probably support AAC soon now that DRM free tracks will be on the iTunes site.
AAC is an open standard. Sure it is patent encumbered, but so is MP3.
If you bought some WMA/MP3 only player that's not upgradeable, that's your own fault. You locked yourself in.
For all those complaining about the AAC format (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Alright Slashdot... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Good job everyone! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good job everyone! (Score:5, Informative)
There are other reasons why Apple would stick with AAC beyond lock-in. First, AAC was designed to provide better sound quality at the same bitrate-- whether it delivers on this seems to depend on a few things, particularly the encoders you're comparing, but AAC is an MPEG standard developed to be better than MP3. Also, MP3 has additional legal (patent) issues which might be important for someone running an online store. According to the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], AAC doesn't require royalty payments for distribution. In other words, using MP3 would force Apple to pay royalties on their music sales, and AAC doesn't.
Beyond that, Apple can't prevent anyone from making AAC encoders/decoders, so there really is no lock-in to complain of.
Re:Good job everyone! (Score:5, Informative)
Of the players in my house:
SonyEricsson K800i: MP3, AAC, Real
SonyEricsson W880i: MP3, AAC, Real
Panasonic DVD player: MP3, WMA
Jaguar Audio Connectivity Module: MP3, AAC
iPaq (with TCP): MP3, Vorbis, WMA, AAC (and many more)
PSP portable: MP3, AAC (maybe ATRAC, but not sure)
CD Player: MP3, AAC (m4a), WMA
in this list.. AAC is well represented in all but the Panasonic DVD player.
But more so, the current future is Phones with Music Players, Nokia, Sony Ericssons (both walkman and non walkman) Motorola and SAmsung seem committed to providing AAC, as opposed to WMA.
Re:Players (Score:4, Informative)
From Wikipedia:
I imagine a few more hardware vendors will now be looking to try to add support, however.
Complete the sentence. (Score:4, Informative)
Complete the sentence: "this would be technically infeasible given their current contracts with the labels." You know, like EMI.
Re:You have to pay again ???? (Score:3, Informative)
Only if you want to increase the bitrate and drop the DRM, and he's only charging 30 cents more to do that.
Other services have been selling songs at a more reasonable bit-rate all along (eg. Yahoo was selling songs for a while at 79 cents for 192Kbps), only Apple was selling at 128Kbps. Even the NYT writer (who loves Apple) wrote that 128 is insufficient and that people were making a mistake to spend money on stuff at this quality. The loyal defenders insisted that when and if a higher quality became necessary and available it would be free for everyone who had already bought it.
Please learn the difference between AAC [wikipedia.org] and MP3 [wikipedia.org]
Now you have to pay again just to get decent sound quality!
There's nothing wrong with AAC 128k. It fits onto portable devices quite well at an average of 1MB per minute of audio.
I think I'll stick to ripping from CD's.
Let me guess, you're ripping to 320K MP3, correct? If so, you are neither benefitting from the smaller size of a compressed audio file nor are you benefitting from the higher quality sound of a lossless CD. And on average you are paying more per album than the rest of us.
I hope you understand why your opinion is in the minority, considering the growing popularity of online sales and declining popularity of CD sales.
Better than CD? (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, some have said that 128kbps is almost as good as 320kbps.
Couple that, with the fact that that you can sample AAC up to 96khz rather than just 48khz, you can encode up to 48 separate channels, and that EMI encodes their tracks from the digital masters rather than a lossy CD.
I suspect that the quality of these tracks may actually rival that of CD's... perhaps be superior in some regards.
I especially like the multi-track encoding idea. Labels could release the music so that the lead vocal, background vocals, and music were all on separate tracks... instant karaoke and instant remix ability. I don't suspect we can expect anything like this very soon, but the AAC format allows for it.
Can anyone confirm, is 256kbps enough for an AAC file to be indistinguishable from a CD in a true double blind listening test?
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:DRM-Free AACs are still locked to Ipods! (Score:3, Informative)
But are there any good ones? Not all encoders are the same, and last I checked libfaac kinda sucked.
If you don't like your 256kbit AAC then you can easily transcode to whatever you want since it's DRM free.
Please, just don't suggest transcoding lossy compression schemes. It's just off the table.
Re:This is what I've been waiting for... (Score:3, Informative)
Parent is not flamebait, just uncomfortably right! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good job everyone! (Score:3, Informative)
Walmart and Target together make up about 45% of sales. Apple's iTMS makes up about 3% last I looked. Just because Apple is in the top 5 does not indicate they have anything close to the power of either Walmart or Target.
Not really. With the move away from DRM, music and music sales become more of a commodity, not less. Sure Apple may gain some influence, but seeing as they aren't making any actual money on music sales, only on the iPod and Mac sales it enables, I don't see them as any credible threat to the music market and a possible benefit as indy bands are given the same exposure as major labels.
Re:Good job everyone! (Score:2, Informative)
Howto Follows>
Launch your iTunes, Go to Preferences -> Advanced -> Importing. Select desired format in "Import Using.." (You have AAC, MP3, AIFF, Apple Lossless and WAV), select quality (if applicable), Ok.
Now right-click your DRM-Free music, and select "Convert to $your_chosen_format". Tada!
Re:AAC is smaller. (But where's the lossless?) (Score:4, Informative)
And yes, unless you have some pretty nice equipment with good range, you're not likely to hear any difference between 256kbps AAC and the CD you bought. You do, however, have the songs in a digital form that will last quite a while, quality-wise. That's why I encode all my CDs to V0 MP3 (variable bit rate, mostly ranging from 250+ up to 320 kbps). With disk space as cheap as it is, it's an assurance that I don't have to re-rip my albums in a very long while. I can buy pretty much any stereo I want, and it'll still sound completely indistinguishable from my store bought CDs.
So ultimately I agree with you. Now that DRM is moot, all I want is higher bitrates. Preferably FLAC or any other lossless format that I can transcode to whatever codec I want. If I'm going to pay close to the same amount as I would the original CD, at the very least supply the same quality.
Re:Good job everyone! (Score:3, Informative)
Sony and Archos (at minimum) make players which support AAC. Commercial libraries like BASS and Alarity support encoding and decoding of AAC. FAAD2 [audiocoding.com] is a free/open AAC decoder. The Helix Community has supplied a decoder [helixcommunity.org] which supports AAC (and lots of other things.) You can get Cellphone AAC Players [softonic.com] for Symbian or Windows Mobile.
Can you please explain again how non-DRM'd AAC audio files create Apple lock-in?
Re:Good job everyone! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good job everyone! (Score:2, Informative)
The way he isn't quite rooted in reality.
Kidding aside, it's interesting to look at the conversations Jobs was having with Disney executives as head of Pixar (the book Disneywar has reproductions of these conversations) - he refused to deal with Disney until they got rid of Eisner as Jobs had recognised that Eisner was, essentially, a lying scumbag who couldn't be trusted. It's certainly possible to see it in terms of a business deal - Jobs surely thought he could get better money elsewhere as the group that saved Disney after Katzenburg left (who oversaw Disney's animated projects from The Little Mermaid to The Lion King), and he probably knew that Eisner didn't value Pixar - but I think it's more interesting that Jobs made an issue out of Eisner at all, not that Jobs was only willing to make a deal if Disney agreed to what they saw as ludicrous demands.
I don't think anyone is ignorant enough to forget that Jobs is a CEO of a public company, and thus will make moves that are in the best financial interests of the company. The contention is 'how much money will this make' is not the only thing Jobs will consider when making strategy decisions, and I think that's probably true.
Re:How much to upgrade full albums? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"just launch your iTunes" (Score:2, Informative)
sudo apt-get install wine
wget -c http://appldnld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/content.i
wine iTunesSetup.exe
Works for me (on Linux, i use a Mac usually)
Re:Good job everyone! (Score:4, Informative)
I'm glad someone finally stated that. AAC is not just any standard, it is the MPEG/ISO standard.
IOW, AAC is to MPEG4 what MP3 is to MPEG2. As you stated, AAC is the official successor to MP3. That's why Apple chose it when they did. At the same time MPEG4 became their standard for video AAC became their standard for audio. That was before the iTMS even went on line.